隔壁的琴声 · 周寅张皓

这幽幽的琴声我断定是隔壁人家的。平日我坐在面朝南的书桌前，面对窗户，透过它可以看到外面的阳台。这琴声听起来是从阳台更远的地方传来的，虽然我不能自比蝙蝠的回声定位，但我这木头耳朵也能大概判断出声音的方位。琴声是平平地飘来的，不高不低，而凭经验我又不能听到隔着屋子的声音，因此只有可能是隔壁人家了。

第一次听到琴声大概在半个月前，那时候我正努力戒掉手机，每日把自己埋头在阅读里。本想借此消消心头的浮躁和火气，但坚持了几天，耐性毫未见长，但意欲把玩手机的心却日渐难掩起来。当我苦于欲求不满而患上神经衰弱时，瘫坐在椅子上，忽然听到了很熟悉的声音，像夏天蜻蜓点水后的波纹，似有若无地扩散。这对于屁股着火的我可不是什么享受，因为声音实在太轻，我并没有听出是什么乐器或曲子，于是急不可耐地打开玻璃窗想一探究竟，就在窗台与窗户间出现一道缝隙时，窗外平日毫不在意的背景音此刻就像洪水一样灌进屋子，盖住了刚刚的琴声。我又不得所愿，但这次心里好像也被洪水冲透彻了，冷静下来，接着坐下看书。待我过了一会再次关上窗，琴声在我耳中就愈发明显起来。我这才听出是钢琴声，弹奏的《野蜂飞舞》。猜想大概是在练习，声音时断时续，很多重复的部分，节拍也慢了许多，我只道刚好，若是真正弹奏起来，我哪里还能看得下去书呢。那天等到我眼镜酸累了，琴声也刚巧戛然而止，仿佛是特别为我而奏的背景音，我私下开始揣度弹琴人的样子。那时候产生的印象只是一个模模糊糊的年轻人，细节并不能构想不出来，也没有十分在意。

在这天以前，其实并未听到琴声，反倒是我经常在窗边吹口琴。冬天湿冷的环境总是黏住口琴出口的薄膜，于是我只能吹一会儿暖一次琴。那天晚上我拿起口琴时，突然觉得是不是我吹琴的声音勾起了隔壁的演奏者练习的兴趣。我无从判断这是不是我的臆想，人从自己的眼镜看世界，总觉得万物都是和自己相关的，世界的一切原因和事件的动因都与自己有着千丝万缕的联系，诸如看到下雨总觉得是天空在为自己哀伤，站在湖边久了也会感到自己在水波中移动，然而人自己也只是一个普通的存在罢了，和云，雨，空气和波浪没什么分别的，但这自大的臆想却可能是人所独有的专长，仿佛是人之所以成为人的一条道理。我因此高兴起来，认定这琴声也是因自己而来的。

后来，几乎每天我都会听到琴声，时间久了，就像是老朋友一样。习惯总会让人失去敏锐的观察力，变得迟钝，因而琴声后来在我耳中，已经和背景的白噪声混在一起了，因为很轻，常常分辨不出曲目，因而对每天的变化也没有很深的印象。仿佛琴声是永远存在着的，每次我感到疲倦，闭上眼睛，耳边总会有这样轻柔的陪伴，我试图找到每天声音开始的时间和结束的片段，但往往失败，就和冬天腊梅花半开的时节相似，鲜明的香气总是飘然出现，将巷子浸润在其中，但对于生活在巷子里的人来说，也只有靠近了树枝才会感到甜美。但要是细细体会，就像我现在坐在桌前，闭上眼，仿佛又能听到一两声琴键的声音，睁开眼时，朔然消失不见，我于是开始怀疑琴声的存在了，什么是可信的，什么又不是，我无从判断，也不好跑去隔壁楼，进屋检查一番，于是坐在原地不知所措。这时猫在我膝上睡着了，我看着他俩不知过了多久，才感到时间在流淌过去，放弃了寻找。

This faint piano, I’m certain, comes from the house next door. On ordinary days I sit at my south-facing desk, facing the window, through which I can see the balcony outside. The sound seems to come from somewhere beyond the balcony; and though I can hardly compare myself to a bat’s echolocation, even my wooden ears can roughly judge the direction of a sound. The music drifts over on the level, neither high nor low, and from experience I know I can’t hear sounds from across a whole building — so it can only be the house next door.

The first time I heard it was about half a month ago, when I was trying hard to break my phone habit, burying myself in reading every day. I’d hoped this would settle the restlessness and irritation in my chest, but after a few days of persistence my patience hadn’t grown in the least, while the urge to fiddle with my phone grew harder to hide by the day. Just as I was suffering from that unsatisfied craving, verging on nervous exhaustion, slumped in my chair, I suddenly heard a very familiar sound — like the ripples a dragonfly leaves skimming water in summer, spreading so faintly it seemed barely there. For someone with his backside on fire, it was hardly a pleasure, because the sound was so soft that I couldn’t tell what instrument or piece it was; unable to wait, I threw open the glass window to investigate, and the very moment a crack appeared between sill and pane, the background noise outside that I never usually notice poured in like a flood and drowned out the music. Again I was thwarted — but this time my heart, too, seemed washed clean through by the flood; I calmed down and sat back to my book. When after a while I closed the window again, the music grew clearer and clearer in my ears. Only then did I make it out as a piano, playing “Flight of the Bumblebee.” I guessed it was practice — the sound came and went, with many repeated passages and a much slower tempo — and I thought it just as well, for if it had been played in earnest, how could I have kept reading at all? That day, just as my eyes grew sore and tired, the music happened to stop short, as if it had been background music played just for me, and I privately began to imagine the player. The impression I formed then was only of a vague young person; I couldn’t conjure the details, nor did I much care to.

Before that day I hadn’t actually heard any piano; if anything, it was I who often played the harmonica by the window. The cold, damp winter kept sticking to the reed-plate at the harmonica’s mouth, so I could only play a while, then warm the instrument again. That night, as I picked up the harmonica, it suddenly struck me: could it be that the sound of my playing had stirred the player next door to practice? I had no way to tell whether this was my own fancy. People see the world through their own glasses and always feel that everything is related to them, that every cause in the world and every motive behind events is bound to them by a thousand threads — the way seeing rain makes you feel the sky is grieving for you, or standing long by a lake makes you feel yourself moving in the ripples — when in fact a person is only an ordinary existence, no different from the clouds, the rain, the air, and the waves. And yet this conceited fancy may be a talent peculiar to human beings, as if it were part of the very reason a person becomes a person. So I cheered up, and decided that this music, too, had come because of me.

After that, I heard the piano almost every day, and with time it became like an old friend. Habit always dulls a person’s keen observation, and so the music, in my ears, eventually blended into the background white noise; being so soft, its pieces were often indistinguishable, and I formed no strong impression of how it changed from day to day. It was as if the music had always existed: every time I grew tired and closed my eyes, there was this gentle companion at my ear. I tried to find the moment each day’s sound began and the fragment where it ended, but I usually failed — much like the season when winter’s wintersweet is half in bloom, its vivid fragrance always drifting up out of nowhere and steeping the whole lane, though for those who live in the lane it turns sweet only when you draw near the branches. But if you attend to it closely — as I do now, sitting at my desk, eyes closed — I seem to hear again a note or two of the keys; and when I open my eyes, they vanish utterly. So I began to doubt the music’s existence. What is trustworthy and what is not, I have no way to judge, nor can I very well run over to the next building and go inside to check, so I sit where I am, at a loss. Just then the cat fell asleep on my knees, and I watched the two of them for I don’t know how long, until I felt time flowing past, and gave up the search.